What was news to me, however, was that everybody’s favorite NBC commentator, Mike Milbury, was the guy who helped give the undrafted May a shot in the NHL. In fact, it ended up being a historic contract.

During the 1987-88 season, May played in 3 games for the Boston Bruins and 61 games for the American Hockey League’s Maine Mariners, where Milbury was head coach.

In 1986, the league was known as the Atlantic Coast Hockey League. It was a place for guys in their late 20s or early 30s who hoped to stretch their careers into paychecks for as long as they could. May signed with the Carolina Thunderbirds and planned to give his career one more shot before going back to school for his business degree.

He was the team’s youngest player competing in an often brutal league that commonly was associated with the movie “Slap Shot.” May wasn’t scared.

…

May accumulated 310 penalty minutes in 42 games with Carolina. He also scored 23 goals. Ron Hansis, now coaching the Erie Panthers of the ECHL, set him up with Springfield of the American Hockey League for the last three weeks of the season. He was signed by the Boston Bruins as a free agent the following year. May was the first to help dissolve the league’s image as a honky-tonk wasteland, unsafe for skilled players.

Since then, May and Milbury’s relationship has, uh, evolved as the two have both become prominent hockey analysts.

After Milbury dumped on Ovechkin and the two had a pretty intense back and forth, May challenged his former coach to a fight. “I’ll tell you what, I would love to, I would walk into that studio right now and fight you and Milbury and Jones with Dale Hunter by my side,” May said. “And I wouldn’t have to throw a punch, and we’d win the fight.”

This is true.

Anyways, we must all write thank you cards to both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter for inspiring May to tweet about how ridiculous their contracts are. Please keep them coming, Alan.